Wrap your goals in something you love

When it comes to personal goals we sometimes find it a bit hard to push through and make progress. Whether its stop drinking, read more, or lose weight, there are always reasons why it just isn’t possible at the moment. “It’s someone’s birthday”, “ I want to watch another episode of X on Netflix”, or “it’s just too hard”.

You need something else to nudge you over the edge and start to make the progress you want towards your goal.

I’m a middle-aged, father of five, with a busy life and a few extra pounds that I’d like to get rid of, and one day a friend of mine introduced me to the idea of “Man v Fat Football”.

The concept here is that fellas who like to play football (or soccer for those of a North American flavour) you can do so, in an environment where the game is only half of the activity. It works on the premise that each team is filled with players who aim to lose some weight, and the team is rewarded by not just the goals they score on the pitch, but also the goals they hit off the pitch.

Last week my team won 9–5 on the pitch, but following the assessment of the pre-match weigh-ins, the match ended 12–10 in our favour, due to a number of players on each team managing to lose some weight since the previous match. Own-goals are also scored for those who gain weight.